As we exit October and enter November, a look back at the last month shows that across most of the region, temperatures were cooler than normal and precipitation was drier than normal in most areas but especially in the Southern Appalachians. I looked at the high and low temperatures separately and found that the overnight lows were more below normal than the daytime highs, which is a sign of the dry conditions. When we are in a drought as we are now, we see an increase in the daily temperature range because there is little moisture to moderate the daily swings in temperature. This also means that we are ahead of normal for chill hours for fruit, since the temperatures at night have dipped below 45 F more often than usual. A lot of the Southeast also saw its first frost of the fall coming unusually early, which caused problems with frozen cotton bolls that were not yet open and some damage to newly planted strawberries and pastures. Because it has been so dry, a lot of winter forage and small grains have not been planted yet, so there was less damage there.
